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can't always keep me in purdah.'
    'Don't exaggerate.' A shade of anxiety crossed his face. 'You know it's only because I don't want you to have too many irrelevant distractions.'
    As Sonya was about to make a heated reply, for she had no distractions, Tessa created a diversion by jumping off the bed and starting an onslaught upon her master's slippers.
    'Bad dog!' Sonya scolded her, controlling her rebellion which would only upset her father. She retrieved the articles, which being sheepskin had an irresistible attraction for the animal. 'That dog's a menace,' she said, putting the slippers on a chair where she hoped they would be out of reach. 'How many pairs has she destroyed to date?'
    Her father chuckled. 'A fairly innocent diversion,' he declared. 'What's a slipper? I can afford to indulge her.'
    'If that's your attitude, I'm sorry I took them away from her, but she should be in her basket, not on your bed.'
    'She prefers the bed, and I like having her near me. If I don't mind, why should you?'
    Unanswerable, but there was something pitiful about the way he turned to his pet for comfort. Sonya's eyes went to a picture above the mantelpiece. It was a large coloured photograph of her mother, not in some acrobatic pose, but wearing a white dress and standing under an apple tree. Estelle had been very lovely, with an elfin charm. Sonya bore little resemblance to her except for her dark hair and a similar bone structure. Estelle Danvers had been an orphan when Eliot had married her, and he quarrelled with his father over the union as he had already fallen out with him about his obsession with skating. His own mother had died at his birth and with her loss the elder Vincent had devoted himself entirely to money-making. He wanted Eliot to go into business and follow in his footsteps and to marry a girl who had money. Estelle Danvers had nothing to recommend her except her pretty face, she did not even know who her parents were. The young Eliot had met her at a charity fete at which she was a stallholder, had immediately been taken with her and pursued the acquaintance. He had taught her to skate and when she had shown amazing aptitude, had partnered her in a pair and together they had swept to success. Eliot had money of his own from his mother's settlement, but when his father died of a stroke, shortly after the fatal accident, he found he had left him all his vast holdings, which even after tax brought in a substantial income which increased with the years. Sonya wondered sadly why such dreadful things had to happen—her mother, so young and vital, wiped out, her father left a wreck. If only Estelle had lived their lives might have been so very different. Eliot followed the direction of her gaze and his face softened.
    'You and the dog are all I have left now,' he said gruffly. 'And all I live for is your success.'
    Sonya winced inwardly. 'Yes, I know,' she said hastily. 'But about Mr Petersen, do you really want to ask him to come here?'
    'I've said so, haven't I? Tell him to come round one evening. Matheson will know if I've any decent port left.'
    'He's probably got heaps of engagements,' Sonya prevaricated, recalling Thomasina's provocative manner. It would not take him long to get round to asking her out, and he would find her a much more rewarding companion than her crippled father, or so she hoped.
    'You said he wanted to come,' Eliot reminded her.
    'Yes, well, I'll see what I can arrange with him,' Sonya agreed. Sven had said he would ring up, but probably he would forget all about it.
    If he hadn't, and they fixed a date, she could contrive not to be present when he called. If all else failed she would fall back upon the usual feminine excuse of a headache, though she rarely suffered from one.
    As if guessing what was in her mind, her father said sharply:
    'You must be there, of course. I'll need you to support me.'
    'That you don't,' she returned, laughing. 'You're becoming tyrannical in your old age, darling.'
    He